Before retiring from the Ray Marshall Center in 2012, Robert W. Glover was a research scientist where he specialized in studies of labor markets, learning, and work for more than three decades. His research focused on various aspects of human resource development, including education, apprenticeship, industry training practices, school-to-career transition, and skill standards. He authored or co-authored several dozen published articles, books, and monographs on various aspects of work and learning. Glover has a PhD in economics from The University of Texas at Austin (UT), with a specialization in labor economics and human resource development.
Dr. Glover helped staff several national commissions, including the Commission on Skills of the American Workforce (America’s Choice: High Skills or Low Wages!) and the Action Council on Quality of Minority Education (Education that Works: An Action Plan for Minority Education). He collaborated with the Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas to encourage alignment of school-to-career initiatives with reforms in mathematics and science in Texas public schools under funding from the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Glover has served as an advisor to several federal, state, and local government agencies regarding education and training issues and conducted numerous evaluations of education and training programs. For the U.S. Department of Labor, he led the Federal Committee on Apprenticeship. For the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Glover served as chair of a Work Group of agricultural employers and worker advocates that sought to identify common ground and a series of practical actions to improve conditions.
Dr. Glover has direct experience with workforce issues in several industries, including semiconductor manufacturing, construction, health care, and agriculture. With the Construction Industry Institute and the Civil Engineering Department at UT and the Construction Economics Research Network (CERN), he has researched construction workforce issues. With support from the German Marshall Fund, Dr. Glover led a research team to examine the governance and finance of apprenticeship and youth training in Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland.
Dr. Glover is active in the Austin community. For Workforce Solutions – the Capital Area Workforce Board, he conducted a series of industry labor market studies on biosciences and biotechnology, and wireless technology. Glover has worked closely with the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups, individual firms, the City of Austin, the Capital Area Workforce Board, Austin Community College, and school districts to implement various school-to-career and workforce development initiatives in Central Texas. He helped establish a program of training exchanges between Austin Community College and Handwerkskammer-Koblenz, Germany, operated under the international sister city program.
At the Ray Marshall Center, he helped to develop and assess a sectoral workforce-training program in health care for Head Start and Early Head Start parents in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The program is selectively targeted at occupations that offer family-supporting wages, benefits, and opportunities for advancement. This effort is part of a two-generation approach to lift families out of poverty. The successful project aims to serve as a dual-generation model, combining high-quality early childhood education with effective training of parents in programs nationwide. This initiative now has the support and collaboration of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, the Foundation for Child Development, Aspen Institute, and other organizations.
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